anti:freeze

truck parked in downtown Portland

This is the truck that drives onto the exit ramp and never returns. The truck with mysterious cargo in the trailer and a locked back door. The truck that waits outside your front window when your parents are late arriving home from work. When your father's heart stops and doctors bring him back a second time. When your mother has a stroke at 42. When your cousin drives into a ditch in mid-seizure, her body found battered and bruised by the county police within the hour. When your chest aches and nobody is there to help you. When you collapse in seizure, the shower still running hot - then cold - over your skin. Your blue skin. When the child crawls into the backseat of the stranger's car. The Terminal Transfer truck is there and there, too. And here always. It does not turn on its headlights in the rain. It rides your tail. It fails to switch on the turn signal. It slips past the "Do Not Enter" signs without a single horn honked. Without a police siren.